Good Job Volunteers!

I am happy to report that our food stall "Project Bangladesh - Education for Underprivileged Students" at Global Fest was very successful. When we started this initiative, we had three goals:

1. Raise money for Education in Bangladesh: We raised $801.63, which will be donated to Hridoya Bangladesh shortly. Here is the link to the budget.

2. Represent Bangladesh to the local community: West Lafayette community got a "taste" of our vibrant Bangladeshi community, at least they will be able to recognize our flag and food :) We even got a special mention in the local press, because the reporter was impressed by the philanthropic idea behind our stall and our very own Tanzi made a good impression when she talked with the reporter. Here is the link for the article.

http://www.jconline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=20109050351

3. Demonstrate that we can accomplish something big, when each of us decides to do something small

I think it is fair to say that we succeeded in all our goals. I am extremely proud of all the volunteers who worked hard to make this event a success. A special praise goes to all the undergrad volunteers for their enthusiasm and determination. I would also like to thank Brithy bhabi, Subrina bhabi and fellow graduate students for bringing crucial organizational skills into the mix. Lastly, I would like to thank the rest of the community for helping us in direct and indirect ways. It was definitely nice to see many of you help us spontaneously during the event.

here are I would like to end the email with some interesting tidbits about our food stall:

Total Sales + Donation: 1184

Profit: 801.63

Most popular items: Samosa, Chola. Aloo chop, Piaju, Mango Lassi

Most innovative item: Potato Chat/Spiced Potato prepared by using leftover from samosa preparation

At the end, I hope this initiative will be pursued for years to come, and our interaction with the West Lafayette community will grow even stronger. Since all the volunteers are experienced now, it will be easier to coordinate such activities in the future.

-Reazur on behalf of all volunteers

Important Announcements: Please Read Carefully

Cooking:

Church reserved on friday from 6-11pm and saturday 8-6pm. We need maximum amount of help on Friday evening, so everybody should plan on coming. Bulk of the frying will be done on saturday morning between 8:30-10:30, so we need atleast 5-6 people for that as well. After lunch on Saturday, we will need a few people have to cook a little bit to refill our trays.

Design and promotions group: Arman bhai, Ishita, Maliha, Tridib, Tamzid, and Rahat

Paper Menu (click here for updated info), Foam board menu, posters for Hridoya bangladesh using the promotional material they sent us), Posters about Bangladesh and anything else that you guys decide to do...

Set up of food booth

Talked to the organizers today, all the food booth will be under a big tent. We can use tape or rope to hang things. The tent should be up Friday morning, so if you go around lunch time you should be able to see the location exact location allocated for our food booth. Look for Pennie, if you have questions.

Shopping

Most of the dry material has been purchased from Chicago. We will get the rest from Walmart/Aldi/payless on Thursday. Zain and Shujon is helping me with this.

You will find the Shopping list HERE

List of things to take for Cooking and Food Booth:

Please list accessories that you will need for cooking and at the food booth [HERE]. The church kitchen has big pots, pans and other basic accessories. I recommend bringing our knife, peelers and cutting board as back up.

Potluck Iftar at the church on Friday evening: Tanzi has volunteered to set up a sign up sheet and will coordinate this activity, please sign up if you want to bring something. There is always the back up option of getting pizza. If you have other ideas please feel free to share... For iftar cooking we should bring our pots and pans, because some of us might be uncomfortable using the church's utensils.

Prayer Space: Find a place for prayer near Thomas Aquinas Church. Going to mosque will easily cost us 30mins, if we can reserve a nearby classroom, that would be ideal. Need volunteers for this...

Temperature Issues: I am assuming all the fried items will be served hot. Suji and Sweets will be served cold, right?

Finally, please be on time on Friday, especially since we will lose an hour for iftar + praying. BTW, is there any confusion regarding the location of the event and location of the kitchen?

Updates

1. After consulting with Rutba about a suitable name for the food booth, we decide on the following name "Project Bangladesh - Education for Underprivileged Students". This is a bit more formal than the last name I suggested... but I like the sound of "Project Bangladesh". We will definitely use more catchy phrases in the poster, so you will definitely get a chance to unleash your creativity!

Here are some of my ideas for poster:

A. Eat Bangladeshi Cuisine -> help underprivileged students in Bangladesh

B. Purdue students help underprivileged students in Bangladesh

*All proceed will be donated to Hridoya Bangladesh

2. There is a Health Department meeting on Wednesday, August 18th from 7pm-9pm. I need some volunteers to join me in this meeting, so that multiple people are on top of all the regualtions that needs to be followed.

3. Tentative Menu has been posted. Special thanks goes to Subrina bhabi for helping me with this.

Link >>

4. Thomas Aquinas Church Kitchen Reservation

Sept 3rd, Friday - 6pm-11pm
Sept 4th, Saturday – 8:00am-11:30am, 1pm-2:30pm, 4pm-6pm

Fundraiser for Bangladeshi Charity

Dear Friends,

For a long time, we have been thinking about organizing a fundraiser which will raise money for a non-profit charity in Bangladesh and help raise the profile of Bangladeshi community at Purdue. We believe that the 16^th Annual Global Fest at Morton Community Center, West Lafayette, provides a unique opportunity for us, but we need the commitment of many helping hands.

Global Fest is organized by the city of West Lafayette on September 4^th at Morton Community Center, to celebrate diversity in this community. Traditionally, local vendors and international clubs from Purdue rent booths, where they sell goods or food items to raise money for their organization. Since 3000-5000 people are estimated to attend the event, it is possible to raise a reasonable amount of money.

At the moment, our plan is to have a food booth at Global Fest from10am-9pm on Saturday, September 4th, where we will sell snack items like chop, singara, bora, chola, pitha and sweets (the menu has not been fixed yet). Whatever money we make, will be donated to a charitable organization and we have a few options at the moment. Arman bhai has already contacted people in Hridoy Bangladesh (courtesy of Nazmun Nahar Apa), where the money can be used to provide scholarship to meritorious student in need. Tonmoy knows people in an organization that supports autistic children in Bangladesh, so that is another option. We are open to other ideas as well. If enough people are interested, then we can also have cultural booth and they are available free of cost. We also plan to have posters and fliers to highlight different aspects of Bangldesh.

The cost of reserving a spot for the booth is approximately $100, so we will have to make a profit of at least $100 to break even. I am pretty confident that we will be able to raise a significant amount of money.

As you can imagine, an event like this involves a huge amount of work, so we desperately need your help. At the moment, we need to know how many people are interested to help and we will only go through with the event if enough people commit to help us. You have until the end of July to make a decision. Even if you cannot commit to help, please help us by advertising to your friends, lab mates and course mates.

Sign Up Link>>

As you prepare to sign up for this event, please take some time to go through your schedule and ensure that you will be available during this time. Also, it will be the middle of Ramadan so think about your religious commitments as well. i would argue that doing charity during the middle of Ramadan is truly celebrates the spirit of the month. And, for the cooks there is some hassle of doing the cooking at a health department approved kitchen (Purdue village community center kitchen is approved). However, we plan to make life easy for the cooks by the doing their grocery shopping for them and have everything available in the central kitchen.

As for other announcements, we plan on organizing an informational meeting for the participants at the beginning of August. We will take all pending decisions during that meeting. We have to complete all the paperwork regarding the booth by the beginning of August.

Finally a word about the blog, I decided to create this blog for our event so that we can have a centralized discussion without cluttering our mailbox. Please feel free to share your ideas to make it a better event. I will try to update this page frequently with emerging details.

Sincerely,

Reazur, Arman bhai and others